Rewarded for Unit Preservation?

USA vs Wehr

Has anyone else experienced this? I just played a 1v1 game. My opponent was literally throwing away his assault grenadier squads and units in general, but in spite of the worst unit preservation I have ever seen in all the games I have ever played, he was 22 victory points away from winning. At his peak he was 464 victory points to my 22 victory points.

I went back and watched the recorded game. I squad wiped:
12 assault grenadier squads! These are 280 manpower a pop!! - that alone is 3,360 manpower down the drain
2 mg42 teams
1 pio squad
1 mortar team

I also vaporized:

1 Panzer 4 that killed only 8 infantry & 0 tanks/vehicles 0 AT guns before it died
1 Panzer 4 that killed 0 infantry & 0 tanks/vehicles 0 AT guns before it died
1 Tiger that killed 0 infantry & 1 Sherman only before it died

My opponent threw almost no grenades - I dodged the few he did
I successfully dodged all 3 of his off map artillery strikes
I avoided mg suppression for the most part

He surrendered after I killed his tiger - 336 victory points to my 21.

I ended with 932 spare manpower, and 82 pop cap worth of units, including: Lieut, Captain, 3 infantry squads that were all vet 3, and a vet 2 Sherman.

In the end I lost WAY fewer squads - I lost:

1 RE
1 Lieutenant
1 rifle
2 50 cal
1 sherman

All this to say: CoH2 clearly does not penalize you enough for squad wipes. I played a ton of CoH1, and you could never sustain the number of squad wipes my opponent did, and have even a snowballs chance in hell of winning, let alone bring your opponent down to 22 victory points while only dropping to 464.

I just want to know if I am the only one that thinks this is beyond ridiculous, or if there are others that feel the same way as me. I know way back in CoH2 Beta, Sepha made a similar comment, so I don't think I am alone in this.

The other thing that annoys me with CoH2, is I frequently have to worry about hitting pop cap. That was pretty rare in CoH1.

I saved the reply if anyone wants to see it.

Yeah if you could share the replay, that'd be great.

I hate to say it, but if he lost that many squads and still almost won, it was probably due to mistakes on your part. I'll watch to replay to confirm if you like, but the cost of that many squads in sheer manpower should have bled him dry to the point where you could have easily overwhelmed him with your infantry.

Anyway, if you think squad preservation isn't punished enough what do you think should be changed to address this?

Here is the replay: http://www.coh2.org/replay/24789/no-unit-preservation-ftw--almost

It looks like upkeep cost smoothens difference in MP loss for too much.

.... but the cost of that many squads in sheer manpower should have bled him dry to the point where you could have easily overwhelmed him with your infantry.....

Had a few minutes, and that's pretty much what happened.

Though there were quite some leaks on OPs side.

I think unit preservation reward is generally fine but could possibly do with tweakining in terms of up-keep costs. When you consider the time it takes to retreat and re-issue men to groups, it could be a little cheaper (expecially for Allied units).

I watched your replay. I think you are in a great position to learn, because in that game you made some mistakes that can easily be corrected.

The first thing is right in the beginning of your build order. As your first unit, you built an ambulance, what you should never do. I mean, it's nice to have only Veteran Riflemen on the field, but they are actually not that much stronger then normal Riflemen. The strength of the Riflemen Company is that they can have many Riflemen squads on the battlefield by building Riflemen like you normally would and then getting additional Riflemen from the call in. So you start building a Riflemen squad right in the beginning, and then use the call in as soon as its available. Having massive early capping power is your greatest atvantage against Ostheer, so don't throw it away.

On the same thought, you put your RE squad into a building in the middle and then did not move it for quite some time. If you see Assault grens, you should rather retreat or soft retreat your Re squad and use it to cap somewhere else. In this game, it could have been either the parts you capped with your ambulance or the strategic points at the right side of the map. They are still uncapped at minute 5.

I think the next problem is that you did not know how to play against Assault Grenadiers. Your micro is not that bad, you dodged the grenade assault of the assgrens, but positioned your Riflemen wrong. Always fight Assgrens in medium or far range, never go close to them (at least not with rifle units). You lost your lieutenant because of it (approx 11:30), and in the beginning you forced the Assgrens back when you had a rifle vs ass duel, but your squad was in bad shape afterwards and had to retreat, giving up lots of capping power. Next time, if you see Ass grens, walk into the next cover you see (even if is just yellow), stand still, and shoot at them. Going close to through nades it not that good, as you have to walk close to them giving up accuracy while on the move, and then you are close to them with hurts your troops as well.

Next, your teching was not very focused. Rule of thumb should be: If you go Lieutenant, you tech Bazookas, if you go Captain, you tech Bars. The reason is, Lieutenant has nothing against vehicles while Captain has not much against infantry, so you need to compensate. Also, the only unit from Lieutenant you built was an MG, which did not do that much.

I think in that game, in the early game I would have used the following build order:

Riflemen
Vet Riflemen
Riflemen (or Vet Riflemen, doesn't care that much)
Lieutenant
M20 Utility Car (upgrade the skirts immediately)
Ambulance

Ass grens have no anti vehicle ability at all, which means you can chase them around the map with your car. Also, Ostheer players often build the 222 scout car against US forces, which can be hold in check with your utility car. Note that the 222 can kill your utility car if microed correctly, so micro your car as well. And don't drive it into a pak.

What slowed you in capping the map where the S-mine fields your opponent placed. There are two ways to deal with S-mines. Eiter get a tank (a Stuart or something heavier), triggering the mines and taking next to no damage, or get minesweepers on your RE squad, and sweep the mines (use attack move or right click the mines to remove them). You put the REs in your Ambulance and used the Medics for capping, which applied the REs in your Ambulance in a wrong way. You use it to have your ambulance driving around while still having healing at home. If you let the ambulance stand in your base, you should rather use the REs for capping and minesweeping. Oh, now I see you got a second RE squad and started sweeping. That's good, you saw what to do, and only did it in a suboptimal way.

Your tank battles where rather ok. You should definitely use the anti vehicle nade of your Riflemen when you have the chance to, and maybe try to position your Paks better. The one that was wiped by a single Ass gren squad while your blob was next to it wasn't necessary, you could have sent one squad capping and the rest to kill the ass grens.


I hope I wasn't too harsh on you. If you improve your early game a bit, you will not be in a situation like that again. It will rather happen that your opponent will have 50 points left when their first heavy tank rolls out!